Earlier this week, I heard an interesting topic on the radio. They reported that a study has found that there are three words that are more important to a relationship than “I love you.” Those three words: “Tell me more.”

The concept is that when a person begins to tell a story about their day, or something that’s important to them, actively engaging in the telling of the story and asking questions about it shows more love, care, and concern than telling them that you love them. It actually shows more love to let someone tell you about their day than to tell them that you love them.

Some people’s first thoughts might be that this proves that we’ve denigrated the words “I love you” to such a place that it has lost great meaning. But I see this as proof of something else. It shows that story truly is the sharing of a piece of yourself to another.

I’ve mentioned this before, but the concept bears repeating. When we share a story, either an event in our lives or something that we’ve created from our own heads, it’s giving to others a piece of our hearts. The story is important enough to us to share it. And it reveals a part of ourselves.

We show what we value when we tell stories. And when others actually listen to our stories, even asking for more information, it shows that they value us. There’s nothing more disheartening to someone than the other person not paying full attention to us when we start telling them a story.

Sometimes when I’ve experienced another person not listening fully, I just stop telling the story. It makes me feel like it’s not worth the effort to continue to share with this person. They don’t seem to care anyway, so why keep going.

And in our present society, with cell phones, tablets, YouTube, etc., it’s very easy to be distracted when someone is trying to tell us a story. We might be listening to another story when a person who is actually in front of us is trying to tell a story of their own.

It shows that story is an important part of being human. Telling stories and being told stories is an act of love. Willingly offering a piece of yourself to others.

And we were made this way. It’s what God would have for us. Think about it. While many people (wrongfully) think that the bible is a rulebook for life. It’s actually a book of stories. God tells his people, through the hand of his people, his story of bringing salvation and wholeness to the world.

This is what is so important to him that he’s been sharing this part of himself with his beloved for millennia. He wants to give us his stories. He wants to show us what he’s done. And he wants to share it with us. The bible is a gift, a piece of God’s heart, given to we who will accept it.

The whole thing is a story placed within smaller stories. Even the Law is found in the midst of the story of God leading his people Israel out of slavery. And it all points to the culmination of God’s plan at the cross, which shoots straight to the fullness of his kingdom where we will rejoice in the stories of what he has accomplished through us and others.

We should crave the stories of God and others. It shows that they care enough for us to share, but it also gives us a chance to show how much we love them by engaging in the story.